


These Broken Dreams Are Screams To Me

by psychotic_hamster



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bad Blood, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-03 15:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16328555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychotic_hamster/pseuds/psychotic_hamster
Summary: Set post-Infinity War Part 1.Tony wakes up in Wakanda to find out just how much everything has changed. The biggest question is, will it break him, or will he find the strength to carry on fighting?(Includes the reunion between Tony and Steve because I just couldn't wait for the next movie to show it and I had plot bunnies bouncing around in my head.)





	1. Some things you take for granted

He can’t breathe. The ash has worked its way inside his suit and he’s choking on it. His helmet is smashed, fractures are spider-webbing across the display. Outside there are rocks the size of ten tonne trucks flying towards him. He’s doing his best to dodge. One jagged boulder glances his left shoulder and he bounces into the next. His boots are sputtering, struggling to keep him airborne. A few more small projectiles strike his armour, but he regains balance. He focuses ahead for just long enough to see the massive moon fragment blocking out all light. It’s too big to get around in time. He brings up his arms to blast a repulsor ray straight down the middle. A warning light flashes on his interface.

It’s too late. The rock crushes him. The air is knocked out of his lungs and all he can see is black. The pressure alleviates and black becomes a cloud of dust.

How did he get out? Did the repulsors fire at the last moment?

It doesn’t matter, because the ash and dust rush into his helmet and straight to the back of his throat. He’s coughing and spluttering now. He fights to get his helmet off, but his left arm is trapped. He can’t remove the damn thing with only one hand.

Wait, hadn’t he fixed that defect? There was an emergency clasp… or something.

It gets hard to think. He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

His eyes shoot wide open and he lurches up. His left arm protests. A sharp pain in his stomach makes him gasp.

Air rushes into his lungs, cool and crisp.

That feels good. Try it again.

He draws in another breath, just a little deeper.

“It’s okay Tony,” a familiar voice soothes. “You’re okay.”

Tony wants to laugh. He wants to bark out a loud and delirious derision that anything could be okay, but it’s enough just to be breathing. He tries to push himself up, ready to launch back into the sky at a moment’s notice, but a firm hand pushes him down. He struggles against it manically.

“Tony please, you’re safe now. You’re home.” A second hand presses a little lighter on his left shoulder and he feels a dull throbbing ache start there and travel down.

He recognises that voice. Friendly, kind, understanding.

He blinks black and red spots out of his eyes and looks up into a familiar face.

“Bruce?” he gasps.

“Yeah, it’s me. You’re back on earth, buddy.” Bruce is looking down at him in concern. He’s trying a smile, but it’s not coming naturally.

Tony breathes a sigh of relief. He feels the energy drain out of him and sinks back down onto the bed.

He’s on a bed. There are freshly pressed sheets pinning his legs down and his left arm is in a sling. There are tubes coming out of his hand and… yes… there’s definitely a tube… down there.

His mind scrambles to piece things together. There was a battle. Thanos. They fought Thanos and then there was a blade sticking out of his stomach. And then… Then Strange surrendered the Time Stone just like that. After all his protests… And then they were ash and he was left alone with blue cyborg lady and the emergency spray he had used to seal his wound had failed to account for internal bleeding. Things got a bit hazy after that.

“Thor found you,” Bruce supplies and Tony briefly wonders if he had said all that out loud. “He brought you here to Wakanda. You were in a bad way Tony, you need to take it easy for a bit.”

Tony shakes his head. His body is still in fight or flight mode. Or at least he thinks it is. Maybe it’s just his brain that is running at a hundred miles per hour.

No change there, then.

“Thor found me?”

“Yes.”

“So he’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“Who else is alive?”

“Um...”

“No, wait.” That wasn’t what he really wanted to know. “Who did we lose?”

Bruce looks distinctly uncomfortable. It’s his signature look, but Tony wants to see it least of all right now. “I don’t think… I mean, you should just focus on resting,” Bruce says awkwardly.

Tony thinks about the circumstances under which he left earth. The aliens attacking New York, there had to have been more, right? What kind of state was the city in now? What about his offices? What about… shit! He could kick himself for not thinking of her sooner.

“Pepper,” he whispers. “Where’s Pepper? I need to talk to her.” He tries to sit up more. He needs a phone, a laptop, something.

Bruce flinches and Tony doesn’t like what he sees in his eyes. He freezes, staring at his friend. Bruce always had a terrible poker face.

He doesn’t try to lie. “I’m so sorry, Tony.” The words tumble out his mouth, as if saying them quicker will make it easier. “She was one of the ones that … disappeared.”

A wave of cold rushes over him. Here it is again, fight or flight.

The bed suddenly feels claustrophobic, like a coffin. Like the coffin Pepper will never fill.  

That thought pushes him over the edge. He struggles against the sheets, ripping them off his legs with his right hand.

“Tony, please.” Bruce lays a hand on his arm but Tony shrugs him off. He yanks the tube out of his hand. It hurts, but not as much as it should. He makes quick work of his catheter too – it’s not the first he’s had to remove – and he swings his feet off the bed. Adrenaline is pumping like crazy now. It makes those first few steps off the bed not too painful, and more successful than they should be.

But he hasn’t used his legs in God knows how long. They stumble beneath him, numb and weak. It feels like he’s lost the bones in them.

Determination gets him as far as the room’s glass wall. He’s gasping for breath and leans against it.

“Tony,” Bruce pleads again. He’s wavering behind him, not sure what to do.

The doorway is in front of him. He can nearly get out.

His eyes scan erratically. No handle, no keypad, but there! An African symbol of some kind. He presses his hand to it. The door hisses to the side.

Cooler air rushes in and it’s welcome. It’s feeling easier to breath already.

Okay, here we go. Tony launches himself off the wall and out the door.

“Tony, wait! Please!” Bruce follows him.

The hallway curves only slightly, but he doesn’t know how far it goes. His eyes won't focus to see that far ahead.

His feet feel a million miles away from his body. They’re useless, fumbling things. He staggers a few steps and realises with a moment of sharp clarity that he’s going to fall, and it’s going to _hurt._

There’s nothing he can do. His body fails him. The black spots are closing in again.

Just as he starts to fall, a firm grip holds him effortlessly, keeping him aloft with a hand under his right elbow and another around his middle. He fights to stand on his own two feet, and at the same time get a look at his saviour.

Soft blue eyes stare down at him with concern, and, he reckons, a little pity.

“Of course,” his speech is slurred. He’s losing control of all his motor functions. “Of course, it’s you.”

He gets one last look at that annoyingly perfect face before his vision completely clouds over. His legs buckle, and Cap is quick to heft him up into a bridal carry. His second to last thought is just how humiliating this is, that after all the bad blood, all the fighting and the bitter silences, this is how he and Steve meet again. His last thought is how he never got to carry Pepper like this.


	2. Scraped up and Bruised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, I continued it!

He’s staggering around in the desert, fractured pieces of his first armour falling off him one at a time. He knows he needs to get far away, as far from the terrorists as possible, but there is a thick red haze that’s making it impossible to see further than his outstretched hand. He thinks it might be a sandstorm, but at times it seems like smoke and at others more like ash.

The sun is still blazing through, making him squint so hard it hurts. He turns away, but there is another sun, and another next to that. It’s then that he realises he might not be on earth, and instead a desert on some alien planet.

“Mr. Stark, what are we going to do?” There is a spider the size of a fist on his shoulder. This should alarm him, but he is actually quite fond of the thing.

“I don’t know,” he finds himself answering.

“But you’re going to look after me, right?” the spider asks.

“Of course.”

A gust blows strong. Sand and ash strike at him like a thousand tiny knives. He throws up an arm to protect his face.

“Mr. Stark!” The spider is swept off his shoulder.

Tony turns to watch it disappear into the storm. He starts to run after it, but it is lost. He is left to stagger alone.

It isn’t long, however, until he comes across a sleek red and gold sports car. Eagerly, he clambers inside it, relieved to be out of the storm. He runs a hand down his sweating face, the ash and sand come off in a muddy muck he wipes on his t-shirt.

Keen to be rid of this place he reaches forward to turn the key in the ignition. It’s not there.

“Tony, you can’t leave him.” He turns to see Pepper, eyeing him seriously, holding the key up for him to see.

“I know that, but can’t we discuss this back at the beach house?” He leans forward, smiling playfully as he tries to take the key from her. She pushes him back.

“Get back out there and find him,” she demands.

Tony sighs and steps back out of the car.

There is a figure stumbling towards him. He thinks to run away but the car is pressed up right behind him.

It turns out to be okay, the figure is the spider. Only this time he is a boy. His face is flaking off, his legs crumbling to black.

“Mr. Stark, please,” he begs. “I don’t wanna go.”

Tony’s consciousness reels back and he knows straight away he is dreaming. He opens his eyes and tears fall from the corners of his lashes, tumbling down his cheeks.

He is back in the recovery room, the bed’s stiff sheets once more pinning his legs down.

Who keeps doing that? He kicks his feet up to loosen them, huffing in frustration. They put up a strong resistance, so he kicks them harder until a sharp pain in his stomach reminds him that he shouldn’t be moving so vigorously. Traitorous tears of frustration trickle down his cheeks.

The dream just now, combined with his injuries remind him of just how much he’s lost. He is left feeling broken and hollow inside.

A slight movement to his right catches his eye and he turns to see Steve Rogers sat, looking distinctly awkward in the seat Bruce had filled earlier. They make eye contact, and Tony can’t quite read the look in Cap’s eyes. He thinks there is remorse, and sorrow and… that damn same pity he had seen earlier. He turns away, disgusted to think he has earned such a look.

 Tears burn harder at the back of his eyes, but he swallows them back. Now is not a time to look weak, not in front of the world’s best damn soldier.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Steve says huskily.

Of all the loaded things to say.

“Sorry for what?” Tony snaps. He’s frustrated, fragile. He’s going to say something he regrets. “Sorry for turning on me? Sorry your best buddy killed my parents? Sorry the whole universe went to shit because we couldn’t resolve our differences? Or are you sorry that for once there was something you couldn’t fix by shoving your perfect damn nose into it?”

There it is.

Steve, in his saint-like way, bears the abuse silently, and Tony hates him even more. He remembers every time Cap made him feel inadequate, every time he couldn’t measure up to his ridiculous standards. It’s more than he can take, so he purposefully turns on his side to face away from him, carefully extricating his left arm from underneath, so as not to crush it.

“I’m sorry about everything,” Steve replies sincerely. It makes Tony want to smash his face in. Not that he could if he tried.

Closing his eyes, he breathes deep and tries to calm down. He doesn’t really want to hurt Steve. He’d sooner hug him and refuse to let go, because at least he is something familiar after so much crazy alien bullshit.

Another deep breath. Come on man, you can do it.

“Yeah, me too, I guess,” he mutters.

Dammit, that was terrible! Hadn’t he planned about a thousand other better apologies than that over the last year? Where were they right now?

Gone, along with everything else.

“Nebula told us what happened; the battle you had with Thanos and how the others… disappeared. We had the same here. The gauntlet is complete and he’s still out there somewhere with it. We’re working to find him.”

Tony doesn’t reply. He doesn’t say ‘what’s the point?’ even though the question is burning in his skull, pressing against the tip of his tongue.

“You still need to take it easy,” Steve says. He folds a battered looking book under his arm and raises to his feet. “But when you’re ready, we would really appreciate your help.”

He makes to leave the room, and Tony doesn’t want to think too much on how that suggestion – that expectation – weighs on him heavier than he can bear. He doesn’t want to ask the question, but his ever calculating, ever working mind can’t be stopped.

“Steve,” he says, stopping the other man short. “What is the population of earth these days?”

“On our last count, about 3.6 billion,” Steve answers.

Tony does a quick equation. That’s not right.

Steve must’ve noticed his confusion, because he adds. “A lot of people died after the first half were taken. There were some pretty bad accidents.”

Tony nods slightly. It makes sense when he thinks about it - half the world’s people disappearing without notice – what happens to a plane when that just so happens to include a pilot and his co-pilot. What happens when it’s the guy in control of nuclear fission at a power plant?

Thanos was so full of shit. He hadn’t made the universe better by taking half of all life. He had turned it into an open, gaping wound.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I dunno how long this will go on for and if I will have enough inspiration to take it much further. But there should at least be another chapter coming soon with much meatier Tony/Steve conflict.
> 
> P.S. I am massively stealing lines from Where Do We Go From Here by Filter. I feel like it kinda fits.


End file.
